| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Walking by Henry David Thoreau: referred.
We have heard of a Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge.
It is said that knowledge is power, and the like. Methinks there
is equal need of a Society for the Diffusion of Useful Ignorance,
what we will call Beautiful Knowledge, a knowledge useful in a
higher sense: for what is most of our boasted so-called knowledge
but a conceit that we know something, which robs us of the
advantage of our actual ignorance? What we call knowledge is
often our positive ignorance; ignorance our negative knowledge.
By long years of patient industry and reading of the
newspapers--for what are the libraries of science but files of
Walking |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Spirit of the Border by Zane Grey: happened.
As they entered the cabin Nell stole a glance at him. This was the third time
he had injured a man because of her. She had on several occasions seen that
cold, steely glare in his eyes, and it had always frightened her. It was gone,
however, before they were inside the building. He said something which she did
not hear distinctly, and his calm voice allayed her excitement. She had been
angry with him; but now she realized that her resentment had disappeared. He
had spoken so kindly after the outburst. Had he not shown that he considered
himself her protector and lover? A strange emotion, sweet and subtle as the
taste of wine, thrilled her, while a sense of fear because of his strength was
mingled with her pride in it. Any other girl would have been only too glad to
The Spirit of the Border |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Travels with a Donkey in the Cevenne by Robert Louis Stevenson: country of the Camisards; four of the five legions camped all round
it and almost within view - Salomon and Joani to the north,
Castanet and Roland to the south; and when Julien had finished his
famous work, the devastation of the High Cevennes, which lasted all
through October and November 1703, and during which four hundred
and sixty villages and hamlets were, with fire and pickaxe, utterly
subverted, a man standing on this eminence would have looked forth
upon a silent, smokeless, and dispeopled land. Time and man's
activity have now repaired these ruins; Cassagnas is once more
roofed and sending up domestic smoke; and in the chestnut gardens,
in low and leafy corners, many a prosperous farmer returns, when
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